


Some Things Don't Fade

by Aureux, Starry_Night



Category: Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Wolverine (Movies), X-Men (Movies)
Genre: Amnesia, Mutant!Clint, Other, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Will add as I go along, what if
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-29
Updated: 2015-06-04
Packaged: 2018-03-26 10:00:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3846688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aureux/pseuds/Aureux, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starry_Night/pseuds/Starry_Night
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scars old and New plague Clint Barton. Unable to handle being thrown with new people after losing so many old, he runs. But that running may lead him face to face with an old friend. Forgotten but unforgettable, together they may break each other completely. Now Clint has to deal with more people than he's ever felt comfortable with since the Circus knowing about his mutation. But they don't know him... It is just a question of whether it will stay that way.  All the while Logan is plagued with dreams about a familiar boy with piercing eyes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Needs Title](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1401184) by [Starry_Night](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starry_Night/pseuds/Starry_Night). 



****

# .Prologue.

****  


 

       _Sharp, pale eyes flashed in the half-light. Vision framed by golden blonde hair dirtied with dust and blood. Lean, muscular arms reached for Logan. Fingers, like the feathers of a wing, stretched out as he called for his friend._

       _"Logan!" His shout echoed, worry lacing itself through the raw voice. His friend, while immortal, knew the kid hated to see him hurt. With a shrug of his powerful wings the kid knocked a soldier, who was trying to keep him down, off and away from himself. His attention was firmly on the broad man bound to the tree. Logan. His friend._

       _"Go!" Logan ordered, eyes locking with the young man. "We'll catch up."_

       _But the young man was stubborn, his loyalty never wavering. He wrenched himself from more soldiers’ grasps and nimbly ran towards Logan, dodging the soldiers between them as he moved. That was save for the arms he kept up at his sides, sharp thick nails leaving a parting gash on any who got too close._

       _Finally, in one fluid motion, he knelt in front of Logan and began sawing at the ropes with the very talons that left many a soldier bleeding._

       _"Your brother already fled." He scoffed under his breath as he worked, lips curled in distaste. It spoke volumes of the dislike he harbored for Victor. Nothing new. Then.._

       _ **CRACK!** The feedback of the gun left rattling in his ears and sent up many a bird fleeing for the trees. But his attention was drawn by a strangled gasp and the cease of the rope’s movement. Beside him, his friend pitched forward, stain… red red stain blood… trickling warm.. covering pouring… shot..._

_**“CLINT!”** _

      

Logan rose, the lingering heat from the dream mingling with the sweat that soaked his brow. The brunette’s heart pumped in his ear in time to the throbbing red that threatened to completely overtake his vision. Silently his mouth moved as he forced himself to count his breathes even as bony claws slowly sheathed themselves.  
  
      "Logan?" A woman asked from beside him. Blinking the dream away, Logan took one last steady gulp of air and turned his attention toward the voice. He looked down at her, admiring the moonlight dancing across her face.  
  
      "Kayla," Logan whispered softly even as pale flushed tan skin and empty blue eyes flickered back with a vengeance.  
  
      "What war was it this time?" She inquired with searching eyes. "Tell me sweetheart. Talking it out might help you feel better."  
  
      Logan met her gaze, debating whether to share. But.. Hawkeye was always a private person, the times he opened up few and far between. He didn't feel that he quite had the right to share Clint's secrets. Especially after walking away on him.  
  
      "All," He said instead, keeping things carefully vague, because really, Clint was there through most of it. Kayla made a sympathetic noise, nose scrunching in that way he liked as she attempted to use her meager weight to drag him back against the pillows.  
  
      "Sleep Logan. You can start fresh again in the morning."  
  
      But all he could see behind those dark lids were those vivid eyes, showing the solemn loss that lurked flickering beneath the surface. 

Eventually the dreams would ease…

Eventually he would forget…

And eventually he would wish to remember, despite the pain and uncertainty that clouded his past.

And the Hawk would still be there, another person in a life of masks and names.


	2. I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so the posts will be a little spotty but I am going to soon start trying for one chapter every Friday. If I miss one Friday I will post it on the coming Monday. As for warnings, there is some possible cutting and bulimia warning if you really squint.   
> For now I am just setting things up and getting the story started. Please leave a comment and tell me whatcha think. Thank you! Enjoy!
> 
> * * *

# Chapter I.

 

 

      It was official. Clint’s body hated him. Why else would it pick now of all times to fail him. Especially under Natasha’s watchful gaze. If he could have only faked it a little longer. Surely then he would have been able to deal with it himself, maybe a little more. After all, he couldn’t afford to be down with an injury when he was on a team of practical superhumans and humans in super suits. (Like hell if JARVIS let Tony ever actually get injured.) Instead of being able to hide in his room and deal with the shoulder himself, which was all he even wanted, he was stuck here with the fire haired vixen herself trying to tear his arm off.

      “Hey I-” The pull continues and his joint creaks unhappily under the small unrelenting hands. With a sharp series of “Ow”s he attempted to get his arm out of Natasha’s clutches. It fails, but it was worth the thought.

      “Are you sure we-” She refuses to even acknowledge his whining. All Clint got for his trouble was an unimpressed raise of a brow. How she still manages to look near flawless coated in dust and blood after a FUCKING ALIEN INVASION he will never know.

      “Nat, hey-yaaaAAHHHH! STOP! RAPE! I WILL CALL SEXUAL HARASSMENT I SWEAR!”

      “Go ahead. I’m still going to relocate it,”

      “Demon,”

      “Bite me,”

      “Maybe I will,” With that scoff and a sudden painful jerk, his shoulder pops back into its socket with a groan of bone against bone. And Nat, with the tiniest deviant quirk to her lips watches as he rubs the offending appendage.

      At least she only had to deal with the shoulder. Anything else that did not involve relocation or resetting bones was fair game for the medical staff. It was a part of an agreement Coulson made after a few too many incidents involving scalpel threats and castration. (The same rule that also gave them the ability to take care of their own injuries if proven to him that they weren't worth true medical attention, but that doesn't apply here. Sadly.) But that didn't make it any less painful. If anything it made it worse. Well when Natasha was the one giving the treatment anyway. Speaking of Natasha doing it…

      “Ow! Seriously!? What are you doing!?” Clint squeaks, turning to face the woman incredulously. She gazes back blankly and returns to the tweezers she has near his forearm.

      “Nat! I’m serious! Why don’t you go get Phil or something before you tear out more skin than you save!”

      “.....”

      “Nat? What’s wrong?”

      “......”

      She sits there, frozen with her eyes refusing to meet his own. His arm is forgotten, the tweezers tight in her white grip as if she is holding onto them for dear life. Clint’s blood runs cold as he watches her. As he watches cool, calm, and collected Nat teeter on the edge of breaking down. All because he mentioned… _Phil... It can’t be... Is he…?_

      “Hello Spy Twins!”

      Both jump as Tony Fucking Stark bursts into the room, eyes wide to the point of near crazed. At his side is a very tired looking man with curly brown hair peppered with gray. It is suddenly as if a bomb has gone off. All the previous tension has flooded out, only to be replaced with a new different kind of unease.

      “Ooohhh-kay. Creepy. Anyway once you’re done tending to each other and making crazy spy love, meet the rest of the class out in the waiting room. Remember shawarma? I’m holding you to that,” Then the engineer is gone, dragging the other guy being him like the steamroller he seems to be. All Natasha and Clint can do is stare at each other and then after him.

      “Any idea what that was about?” The archer finally breaks the silence with a whistle, eyes still trailing the path that Tony left.

      “That’s just Tony being Tony,” Natasha mumbles. Her eyes still won’t meet Clint’s. At least she doesn’t look like the tweezers are the only thing keeping her together. Even if that means she is back to digging shards out of his arm.

      “Since when has he become “Tony” and not Stark? You bonded with them, didn’t you?”

      “We’ll talk about everything later. Let’s just get you cleaned up before he decides to come back,” With that she is back to work, leaving Clint a little lost in the process.

xXx

      The street was worse when on it. All across it were corpses, both human and alien strew about on top of cars and under piles of rubble. Holes big and small in the street. Large slabs of concrete displaced. Throughout it all permeated a smell of smoke and blood.

      Clint felt himself tense as he took in all the damage he helped wrought. Yes he was there for the final battle, but in the end he was just as guilty as Loki. After all he was the one who helped plan the entire thing. Who helped Loki get what he needed with the use of his wide extension of contacts from his time as Hawkeye and before. And most of all, he was the one who lead the attack that almost took down the Helicarrier.

      He could make excuses all he liked. He could blame Loki for controlling him. SHIELD for putting him in that place. But in the end it was his hands and his plans that caused so much chaos. In all his years he never felt so much guilt. He’d killed, probably more people in all than even Natasha could claim. Yet there was always something impersonal about war. This wasn’t war, it was near slaughter. Clint would shutter to think about what would have happened if the other Superheroes weren’t around.

      What with Steve Rogers, who managed to wrangle everyone into control and was now walking a few steps behind Stark, eyes narrowed in disapproval as the man rambled on to the person with him earlier (Who Clint found out was Doctor Banner). Flanking the other side was Thor, leading a collared and gagged Loki behind him like a puppy dog.

      The sight both amuses him and freaked the hell out of him. After all, what does hanging out with these people make him? Some kinda superhero on a team of them? He wasn’t a superhero! _Well Coulson probably would find it funny. Speaking of him, where is he? I’m not surprised he is hanging in Roger’s shadow practically fangasming… Annd I have been hanging around Darcy too much…._

      Natasha had refused to say anything more on the subject of Phil. Clint had tried. Many times. All she would say is to wait until later and she would explain. And every time he heard it he couldn’t help the bubble of anxiety in his chest.

      “Yo Legolas? You alive back there?” Stark calls suddenly painfully loud over his shoulder. As trained as Clint was, he couldn’t help the slight jump which made him feel even more like he wanted to crawl out of his skin. Heck Natasha was sending him looks like she was worried there was more wrong with him than he let on. And that was true, to some extent. But that didn’t mean he wanted to freaking advertise it.

      “Yeah. Whatcha want Stark?”

      “Just wanted to know if you were doing okay,” But the other man was already starting to turn back around, his attention span going toward the small shop they were approaching. As Stark looked over it, his eyes seemed to suddenly lighten up. “And the shawarma is still standing!”

xXx

      Well that is where the energy ends. With Loki locked in the bathroom, the teams sits there, eating next to completely quiet. Exhaustion wars with the awkward silence that none can seem to figure out how to break. For when it came down to it, they had next to nothing in common that they could readily talk about that didn’t involve fighting.

      And well, the food is also bland. At least in Clint’s opinion.

      “Soooo shawarma,” Stark finally says.

      “Why are we here? Shouldn’t we be using our time to help out the paramedics or look for survivors?” Steve finally blurts, his food untouched in front of him.

      “Because we just saved the freaking world,”

      “And now all our problems are solved? You think because we got rid of the aliens everything is over? There are people likely still trapped out there. The hospitals have their hands full just trying to tend to all the injured and dying,”

      Before it can escalate into another pissing contest Nat seems to decide to step in.

      “We can’t do anything as burned out as we are,” Her voice brooks no argument as she stares both men down steadily at once. It says something about how scary she is considering the Widow is shorter than both of them.

      “I just figured it was the least we could do… I’d think you would be more for it.. Especially after Coulson…” Steve mumbles this dejectedly into his balled up fist. He straightens when Natasha lets out a string of Russian curse words but the damage is already done. Clint has his full attention on Steve.

      “What do you mean “especially after Coulson”?” Each word is practically painful as he forces them out. If something happened to Coulson he… what would he do? _I mean I lost people before… but Coulson.. no **Phil** wasn’t just another person to me… he was so much more… One of the few people I let myself truly bond with... If I lost him..._

      “I thought you knew. You did plan for it, right? Get Loki in and get him in a position to take out a high ranking Agent?” The way Steve says it, as if Clint had wanted any of this to happen. He can’t help it. He runs.

      Clint’s body slams into the trash can hard, fingers gripping the lid and he throws up the meager food he just consumed. _Phil’s gone! Phil’s gone! Phil’s gone! You killed him!_ His mind chimes on an endless loop. This is too much. Too much.

      Then Natasha’s hand is on his back, rubbing in soothing circles, but it isn’t enough. It isn’t enough because he killed Phil and he killed friends and the superhero teams thinks he meant it and he is going to lose everything he managed to scrape together in this life and he still has secrets but they already don’t trust him now so he should just give up and….

      And Clint does what he learned to do ever since he learned he was different…

      Clint runs away. He simply waits until he has a chance and quietly slips away. With only the clothes on his back he goes to a bolthole he hasn’t used in over a year. One that he made sure to never visit or let SHIELD know about. The small shack it is in isn’t even in a name traceable to him.

      There Clint sheds his SHIELD clothes and, still naked as the day he was born but feeling the freest he has in years, he spreads his bare wings. Feathers peel away, like an elaborate makeup that no one noticed. Each piece slots itself back into place on the appendages like a puzzle completing itself. They settle themselves against his back, whole and most open they have been in decades. But he hasn’t the time to revel in the feeling.

      All it takes is a moment to stretch the old worn fabrics over his skin, forgoing a shirt. Clint needs his wings free. He won’t stay in the sky for long. Just enough to get him far away fast enough from what he is to do next.

      Taking the archery arm straps in one hand, Clint ties them above his bared shoulder in a makeshift tourniquet. It will both stop the blood and delay his body’s reaction to the wound. In his other hand is an old army knife from some past war or another. He can’t pinpoint which one exactly..

      The knife bites into his skin, old metal pulling. He should probably sharpen it later, but it will work for now. Though it doesn’t feel good, he doesn’t have time to stop for pain. Blood seems happy enough to flow free as he cuts through flesh to get to the subdermal tracker SHIELD has planted into him.

      The second it is out Clint gathers up his duffel, wings wrapping out around him darkening his shape to match the growing shadows. He doesn’t put it past SHIELD or Stark to use a satellite to track him, so better not to give them a parting shot. Covered by trees as he is, it wouldn’t be a surprise is Natasha would tell them to look for Clint leaving the scene.

      The wet moss and earth squash underfoot, but happily suck up his tracks as he goes. Clint would like to say Widow could still find a way to track him, but he has been at this far longer than she. Even with the new technological advances, he still could surely stay ahead of the game. As he loops back around he keeps his eyes open for an area of less undergrowth.

      Clint’s gaze settle on the area, each step going faster bringing him closer to the place where he can join the bright blue sky. And to those below he would be nothing more than a great bird. At least for a night. To a place farther and further. To a place they would surely not expect to find him out so soon. To rest and recover his supplies. But until that moment…

He will fly.


	3. II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for taking so long, but here' the next chapter. Also summer has started so we should be cranking them out faster.

Chapter II

 

      _The tawny and white shape danced across the sky above him moving with an almost acrobatic grace. Each loop held a kind of inherent freedom that even someone like Logan could never hope to achieve. A sort of natural majesty that the world owed that kind of freedom to._

_Logan continued to track in conjunction to this bird of prey. This partner in crime. Together side by side in almost seamless companionship, even as the sun continued its trek across the sky._

_It was only when the sun was high and freely throwing shadows across the face when the circling became a deep dive aimed direction to his east. Time to move._

_The customary rifle joined the dirt as the predator began his hunt, crouched with claws climbing free from his skin. Logan wrinkled his nose as the wind changed direction, bringing to him the scent of gunpowder, sweat, and sex. He hated men like that, who took advantage of the war for their own liberties with the females left behind._

_It took barely a moment between the group bursting into the clearing and the flicker of motion in the corner of his eye for him to leap into the fray. Even less time before the chaos broke out as the men realized what was happening, if only a little late._

_Blood was spilt. Claw and sharp blurs of shimmering silver worked side by side. Grass gorged its fill, leaving behind stagnant red pools. The mud bled, brown becoming too close to crimson as each step came one after the other. Bodies, faces frozen in horror and eyes blanked out… Then vibrant live eyes sharp beyond compare… Staring into his soul… and his heart was thumping with adrenaline… but the boy, practically a boy… looked wrong… killer… he was the killer, but the other…  The other…_

     Logan shot up, hands curled in sheets. Stuffing peeked up to say hello from the deep tears his claws left in the bedding material. _Damn. Gonna have to get the duct tape again. Great._  He rubbed his face. Sweat-slick hair flopped back with the movement to free his forehead. Even as his senses buzzed at high alert, he couldn’t bring himself to really pay attention. Logan has been here before. No one was there. Nothing was there. Just a nightmare.

     He came back to himself who knows how long later. The room was still dark. Everything was quiet save for the ticking of the damn clock. Each tick extended every moment and in a fit of anger it was sent into the wall. Thunk then silence.

      Logan pried himself up and managed a tired stumble to the adjacent bathroom. He groped for the switch only to growl at the sudden light. He continued his hobble into the shower, not waiting for the water temperature to adjust. Logan stood under the spray letting the water run over him. He could barely remember his dream anymore.Only the blood, gunshots, war, and something that was just out of reach and itched stayed with him. Logan ground his teeth, pushing the images away. He would ask the professor to bring them back to the forefront once the sun actually came up. Maybe then he would figure out what he missed. It was irritating how he could forget about the anemisa most days, while on others his mind kept looping back to the blank spaces.

     Logan shut the water off, grabbed a towel, and went to find a set of clean clothes. He was pretty sure the shirt was clean despite the hole in the side, and the jeans were close enough, only a little muddy on the leg. It was still dark enough out the window to be too early for the mansion’s inhabitants to be waking. The foliage and lawn was just starting to turn gray with the impending dawn, and left Logan with the option of going outside and not being yelled at later for ‘disappearing into the night’. A smirk touched his lips, a wonderful, a wonderfully mischievous idea coming to him. Quietly Logan crossed the teachers’ hall and hurried down the stairs.

     Scott’s bike sat in the garage out in the open as though waiting for Logan to come down. The keys were in the box by the door as if Scott had placed them there just for him. Logan chuckled as he left the school’s ground, the bike rumbling beautifully beneath him. He could just picture the look on Cyclops face when he realized his bike was missing. Logan enjoyed jerking the stick stuck up Scott’s ass, and that fact that he could do that just by breathing half the time was a bonus.

     Logan was unsure of how long he had been riding. This far away from the city there were only fields and the occasional farm house with a lonely mailboxes. The road signs were useless to him, as he never learned them by name, all ways going where ever and not particularly caring. Though with the sun clear over the treeline Logan was pretty sure he had gone far enough and was ready to turn around and head back to the manor; or, stop at the diner next exit and get something good for breakfast. Logan pulled off the highway and onto the exit ramp, the idea of going back to the School far from his mind.

 

MEAN WHILE…

 

     “Shhhh,” Bobby hushed Kitty. She put a hand over her mouth bouncing excitedly behind him. Bobby waited till he heard the sound of a motorcycle pulling out of the garage before continuing forward. Kitty, Rogue, Pyro and Peter following behind him. The feeling of excitement was spreading, their biggest opposition to escaping just left and they other teachers were never up this early. Pyro grabbed the keys to the truck and pulled Rogue behind him to the dark blue truck that would only fit the two. Peter chose a more conservative car, giving the keys to Bobby so that he could drive. Pyro pulled out first leading the way towards the city.

 

 


End file.
